Joe Perez: Plenty to blame for UConn football's Meineke mess

Joe Perez

Sunday

Dec 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMDec 30, 2007 at 3:25 AM

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Understandably, no one on the UConn football team is going to point fingers at the culprits responsible for the less-than-exciting play of the first half and the downright abysmal second half in the 24-10 loss to Wake Forest in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Understandably, no one on the UConn football team is going to point fingers at the culprits responsible for the less-than-exciting play of the first half and the downright abysmal second half in the 24-10 loss to Wake Forest in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

The team took the politically correct approach: credit Wake Forest.

The problem with blaming anyone with the Huskies is that there’s so many fingers required, no one would know where to begin.

You can start with the offensive play calling. Call it unimaginative, call it conservative or call it bad. All would apply.

Sure, the Huskies’ strength has been its running game and Donald Brown played decently, but when you run three plays: to the left of center, to the right of center and at center, it won’t be too hard for defenses to stop you.

What about Brown’s 56-yarder? Credit that to Brown. He saw nothing to the right of center, stopped himself and cut to the outside. Even then, he needed to break a few tackles before he was free. That’s not offensive genius. That’s Brown making something out of nothing.

Even more perplexing is that Wake Forest is the No. 16 rushing defense in the nation. Meanwhile, the Demon Deacons have the 78th passing defense. This might be groundbreaking, folks, but how about a passing game?

Unfortunately, quarterback Tyler Lorenzen was too busy getting smacked around that it led to some of the most his questionable decisions to date. His 13-for-26, 98-yard effort may have left Huskies fans wanting D.J. Hernandez back under center. At one point, he tried squeezing a pass to Steve Brouse through double coverage. Bad idea. He also took a sack at the one, narrowly missing a safety. That wasn’t because of a head’s up play. That was dumb luck.

To Lorenzen’s credit, it wasn’t his fault his wideouts occasionally treated the football like a hot potato and couldn’t make the catch.

Don’t worry — the defense isn’t off the hook, either. As much as it played bend-but-don’t-break in the first half while pitching the shutout, the second half was a nightmare. You know what’s worse than watching a high-powered offense like West Virginia pick apart your defense? Watching a conservative offense, like the Demon Deacons’, pick at the Huskies’ defense as if it were a scab. Once it bled, there was no going back.

If the Huskies plan on making more visits to bowl games, they are going to have to learn from this game. They are going to have to learn that strength versus strength isn’t always a good idea.

Then again, who would’ve thought the Huskies would be in this position? Never mind playing a bowl game, but a bowl game after Christmas? Everything that happened since the Thanksgiving weekend loss at West Virginia is gravy.

If UConn plans to be taken seriously, bowl wins shouldn’t be viewed as bonuses. They should be viewed as mandatory.